There is some good new in the world. This ain’t the biggest deal, but we’ll take it.

The Army will reduce the length of many combat deployments from 12 months to 9 months. This is also down from the height of the Iraq war, when many soldiers spent 15 months at war. The shortened tours don’t begin until early 2012 and don’t apply to units that deploy before then.

Also, Army Secretary John McHugh says that “high demand and low density units and individual deployers” will still go to war for a year at a time. Sorry folks.

While it is “only” three months less, its hard to imagine how big a deal that is go a guy or gal at some isolated FOB in Afghanistan.